Method and apparatus for making bellows



Jan. 10, 1928. 1,655,778

, F. K. BEZZENBERGER METHOD AND APPARATUS .FOR MAKING BELLOWS Filed Aug.2l. 1924 zsheets-sheet 1.

nventor. Fr ed K. Be33enberger Jan. 10, 1928.

1,655,778 F. K. BEZZENBERGER METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING BELLOWS Filed Aug. 21. 1924 2 Sheets- Sheet 2 INVENTOR. Fred K. Beu

BY frz vnsd' Patented Jan. 10, 1928.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FRED K. BEZZENBEBGEB, OI CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OHIO, ASSIGNOR TO THE FULTON SYLPEON OF KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE.

METHOD AND A PPABATUS FOR MAKING BELLOWS.

Application mar August 21, 1924.. Serial No. 733,320.

- Ergducing a more perfect bellows of this d, in which the corrugated walls thereof are provided with substantially uniform temper throughout the entire area and are made parallel.

Bellows of the general type shown in the accompanying drawings comprise an expan sible and contractile tubular member formed by a fluid pressure forming machine such as illustrated and described in my Patent No. 1,506,966, granted September 2, 1924, and these bellows, as they come from such forming apparatus, have corrugated wallswhich may vary in thickness as well as -1n degree of hardness or temper. Ordinarily the outer circumference of the corrugations is thinner, and therefore, of greater temper than the metal at the inner circumferential portion. For many purposes such a bellows is entirely satisfactory but in certain cases 'the irregularity of wall thickness and temper is undesirable and one of the objects of this invention is the correction of this lack of uniformity. Still further it is found that bellows, as formed by the above-referred to method, do not have their walls perfectly arallel when collapsed after being taken from the forming machine.

The object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for workin the metal of the bellows so that the thic essthereof will be substantially uniform at the inner and outer portions of each corrugation. A further object hereof is to provide a method'and apparatus in connection with the above which will simultaneously efiect an equalizing of temper throughout the area of such bellows corrugations. Still further, I also work the metal to correct the nonparallel condition of the walls of the corruations. To the accomplishment of the oregoing and related ends, said invention, then, consists of the method and means hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims.

The annexed drawing and the following description set forth in detail certain means and one mode of carrying out the invention, such disclosed means and mode illustrating, however, but one of various ways in which the principle of the invention may be used.

In said annexed drawin Fig. 1 is an elevation of the present apparatus; Fig. 2 a view of an ordinary bellows; Fig. 3 an enlarged sectional view throu h a number of corrugations illustratmg tlie slightly non-parallel condition of the walls of a pressure formed bellows after collapsing; Fig. 4 an enlarged sectional view through the wall of the tube from which a bellows is to be formed, showing in dotted lines a single corrugation; Fig. 5 an enlarged sectional view through several corrugations as positioned between the rollers I or dies of the. present'apparatus; and Fig. 6 a; sectional view through several corrugat1ons after being treated by the present method.

Bellows of the type referred to above are formed from hollow metallic tubes into an expansible article, as shown in Fig. 2, having .a plurality of flexible corrugations 10. The tube, prior to the forming operation, is annealed to render the metal thereof soft so that it may be easily worked into the desired shape, that is, into relatively parallel corrugations by internal fluid pressure, during which operation the metal .at the outer circumference of each corrugation is stretched to a greater degree than the metal at the inner circumference thereof. Consequently such outer circumferential portion is of greater hardness or temper than that of the inner portion, and because of such greater amount of working, the outer portion is ap reciably thinner than the inner portion. s herein used, the term outer circumferential portion may be understood to mean the-outer half of each corrugation and the term inner circumferential portion the inner half.

It is found desirable in some of the various uses of bellows to provide a bellows in which the metal of the corrugated walls is of substantially uniform thickness and temper throughout the entire area, and in some cases it is also desirable to maintain these walls in perfect parallelism. customarily, after forming, the bellows is manually collapsed, that is, the corru ations are collapsed 1011 itudinally of the llows, which to some egree, places the walls of the corrugations parallel, but this action is never more than approximately accurate.

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. It is also an object of the present invention to provide a simple, easily operated apparatus by which the slight irregularities described may be corrected in bellows of this type. The machine shown in the drawings has been designed to simultaneously correct such irregularities .in one operation, i. e. to reduce the walls. of the bellows toa uniform degree of thickness and temper and to render such walls parallel.

The machine comprises a panel or base member 11, herein shown as a vertically mounted plate on the front of which is carried the operating mechanisms. At one side of member 11 is mounted a pair of matched rollers 13 and 14. Roller 13, which is small in diameter to accommodate comparatively small bellows, is rotatably carried at one end of the stub shaft 15 mounted in a bracket 16 on the front of member 11. The other roller 14 is mounted between arms 17 and 18 of a sliding oke 19 to move toward and away from rol er 13. The yoke 19 is slidably supported in a bracket 20 and has secured to its upper end a vertical rod 21 which is received at its extremity in another bracket 22. Suitable means are provided for reciprocating the yoke 19 and the roller 14, and also for rotating said roller, these means comprising a driven pulley 25 carried at one end of ashaft 26 which has a suitably beveled gear 27 at its other end, Meshing with gear 27 is a beveled gear 28 mounted on a shaft 29, carrying a worm 30, from which is driven a worm wheel 31. The worm wheel, in turn, drives a shaft 32 having one end 33 terminatin adjacent the rod 21 between brackets 20 an 22. On this end 33 is mounted a cam member 34 adapted to engage a collar 35 on rod 21, and the cam upon rotation of shaft 32 actuates the yoke 19 and roller 14 downwardly towardroller 13. Resilient means in the form of a spring 36 is interposed between a head 37 on the rod 21 and the up er side of the bracket 22 for the purpose 0 keeping the collar 35 in engagement with the cam 34 and for. raising the roller 14 upwardly during; the inaction of said cam.

The shaft 26 is also utilized for rotating the roller 14. Connected between the shaft 26 and shaft 40, upon which is supported roller 14, is a universally jointed shaft 41 which permits the reciprocation of oke 19 while maintaining the drive of sai roller. In use the ulley 25 is set in motion and bellows are t en laced on the roller 13, one by one, durin t e interval when the roller 14 is in raise position.

In Figs. 3, 4 and 5, I have shown the slightlyv non-parallel condition of the walls of the corrugations; the differentiation in the thickness of material between the inner and outer circumferential portions of each corrugation, and the manner in which said corru ations are received between the rollers 13 an 14 of my a aratus.

For purposes 0 1 ustration, the difference in degree of thickness between the inner and outer circumferential portions of a corrugation is shown in Fi s. 4 and 5 on a considerably exaggerate scale. The wall of a hollow tube 50 (Fig. 4) is expanded outwardly into corrugations of the shape shown 7 in dotted lines. It will be apparent that the metal at the crest of the outer portion of the corrugations has been stretched or worked considerably more than the metal at the inner portion. It is therefore thinner roller 13 and engage the corru ations be-'v tween this roller and the secon roller 14. The action of these rollers on the material of the bellows will be readily seen from an inspection of Fig. 5. The inner portion of corrugations is rolled inwardly, which si-' multaneously reduces the metal at that point to the proper thickness and correspondingly1 increases the temper thereof. Also suc rolling action sets the walls ofthe corrugations arallel. gThe corrugation when so treate is of substantially uniform'thickness and the outer and inner portions of the corrugation are v graded in temper rom the center of the flat portion to the inner and outer crest, while the temper in the two crests are practically the same.

Other modes of a plying the principle of my invention ma be employed instead of the one explaine change being made as regards the means and the steps herein disclosed, provided those stated by any one of the following claims or their equivalents be employed.

I therefore particularly point out and distinctl claim as my invent1on:-

1. he method of mechanically working the metal of a pro-formed metallic bellows having its outer portion of less thickness and greater temper than the inner portion 'which consists in reducing the diameter of such inner portion and thereby stretching and working the metal thereof until substantially uniform thickness and temper is obtained in such inner and outer ortions.

2. The method of mechanicall y workinga proximately uniformly the metal of a pre-formed metallic bellows having a difference in the thickness of the inner and outer portions of the corrugations which consists in working the metal and reducing the thickness of the thicker portion until it conforms with that ofthe thinner portion.

3. The method of mechanically working the metal of a pre-formed bellows having a difference in the temper in the inner and outer portions of the corrugations which consists in working the metal in the less tempered portion in an amount causing the same to substantially conform with that of the other portion.

4. The method of mechanically working the metal of a pre-formed bellows having portions of its corrugations of less thickness and of greater temper than other portions thereof which consists in working the metal of the thicker and less tempered portions to reduce the thickness and increase the temper thereof until they conform with that of the other portions.

5. The method ofmechanically working the metal of a pre-formed bellows having portions of its corrugations of greater temper and of less thickness than other portions thereof and having the walls of such corrugations non-parallel which consists in simultaneously working the metal of such thicker portions to thin the same and increase the temper thereof while also bringing the walls of said corrugations into parallelism.

' 6. In a machine for making bellows, the combination of a rotatable roller, a matched roller mounted adjacent said first roller, reci rocabl mounted means for carrying sai second roller, means including a universal joint for rotating said second roller, a cam driven from said rotating means, means on said reciprocating means for engaging said cam whereby said second roller is moved toward said first roller, and a spring for holding said reciprocating means in contact with said cam.

7. In a machine for making bellows, the combination of a rotatable forming roller, a second complementary roller reciprocably mounted for movement into operative action with a bellows mounted on said first named roller, means for rotating said complemen- V tary roller, positive means acting on said last-named roller for bringing the same into action against a bellows mounted on said first-named roller and resilient means normally positioning said complementary roller.

8. Inca machine for making bellows, the combination of a rotatable forming roller, a second complementary roller reciprocably mounted for movement into operative action with a bellows mounted on said first-named roller, means for continuously rotating said complementary roller, positive means acting on said last-named roller for bringing the same into action against a bellows mounted on said first-named roller, said positive means being actuated by said firstnamed means, and a resilient member normally positioning said complementary roller.

Signed by me this 18th day of August, 1924.

FRED K. BEZZENBERGER. 

